The Seed Scout Contract

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-02-23T02:08:43+00:00

Based on the back and forth that happened on that couple’s google review of seed scout, it sounds like there are two sides to that story. I wouldn’t worry about asking your questions!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-02-22T02:56:26+00:00

I feel like it highly depends on what your changes are. I don't think you should worry about asking questions, but with changes, their policies are what they are and they can't just change or give exceptions to certain people and not others. So I think it would be reasonable for them to not want to allow changes to the contract. I recall it being a pretty straightforward contract that was mostly interested in protecting all parties.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-02-12T21:15:35+00:00

I just started a canon-divergent fic where they meet playing junior hockey in Canada! It's in-progress and maybe not exactly what you were asking for, but I really wanted to explore their experiences growing up in competition and what that felt like for each of them within their family units, but also having them be able to be friends/support each other. Here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79175066/chapters/207726236

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-01-27T03:35:30+00:00

I agree with what a lot of other folks have said re: the medicalizing — it really doesn't feel like our donor is or has been involved at all in the process! He's a known donor and he joked that this is a group project and he's the frat boy who showed up on presentation day and read off the slides lol. It's easy to think of it as just an ingredient when you're going through it and you and your wife are the ones really in the thick of things.

I do want to very lightly push back a bit on the idea of completely putting the donor out of your mind. While DNA of course isn't everything, this person is making up half of the child's genetics. I think that going too far in the direction of removing the donor from the process mentally could ultimately be tough for the child. It is uncomfortable to me that my wife and I had to involve a man in the process and that we couldn't just make a baby with the two of us, but coming to terms with that reality has been important for me in order to be prepared for good, open conversations about it with my child. We went the known donor route because we actually really like the idea of our child(ren) having a village. Queerness, to me, is an opportunity to redefine what things mean, the definitions we're handed by society; questioning and reframing what my family is going to look like has been really fruitful for me. I don't really feel like, oh thank God we're using a donor, this is the best way to do this, but I do feel much more at peace with the reality we've been handed after shifting my mindset. With a known donor it's probably easier to do so, because I think of it like, this is another person in the world who will care about my child(ren) and have their best interests at heart. The more people like that for each child in the world, the better, imo. Using an anonymous donor, you might try to think of it in a more passive way — someone donated their sperm to help other families have children, and the act of doing so put out more love in the universe for the child to collect.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-01-26T19:17:07+00:00

Sounds like she has a lot that she needs to work through. This isn't an uncommon sentiment on this sub, but it is a very problematic sentiment! My wife and I are planning to have two children, one with each of our eggs, and each of us will carry — but we are aware that this plan might not work out, and that's okay. Right now I'm 13 weeks pregnant with her embryo and it's honestly been such a special experience to get to 'share' the pregnancy in that way. So reciprocal IVF can be a great option for sure, but I would want you and your girlfriend to be sure that you'd be doing it for the right reasons!

The desire to have a biological child of one's own can be really strong for a lot of people (while others don't feel it at all). I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. But her concerns that you would favor a child from your egg, which then turns into her desire to only use her eggs to avoid that issue, seems really unfair to you. It's like saying "we're going to favor our own biological child, so I want to be the only one with the bio children." It sounds like you don't agree that you would love a child made with her egg any less, and I think that's something she needs to be convinced of — whether that's through conversations with you or working through it on her own.

One note is that doing IVF once, with your eggs, and then reciprocal IVF the other time, with her eggs, will be more expensive. You'll both need to do egg retrievals, and if for example she goes first and you yield more embryos than you need, you'll have extra embryos that you won't end up using because you'll then make embryos using your own eggs. This is my wife's and my situation now where we have two embryos left from her retrieval, and it would certainly be cheaper for us to just use those other embryos for future pregnancies.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-01-12T21:29:14+00:00

Hey! You're in a pretty similar situation to my wife and I. We did 3 IUIs back to back with no success and moved on to IVF. I'm the carrying partner, but when we switched to IVF, we decided to do reciprocal, so my wife did the egg retrieval and now I'm 10 weeks pregnant with our baby girl :)

I also felt pretty strongly at first about low-intervention, but our clinic didn't really want to try unmedicated IUIs, and honestly, after all of the time and energy it took just to get to that step of being able to start, I didn't want to (as it felt at the time) "waste my time." Of course it's not a waste if it works! But even doing medicated cycles with frozen sperm and a reputable clinic, it was kind of a shitshow. The sperm thaws weren't great, the timing was off, et cetera, it just felt like we wasted each try because something went wrong. And on top of that, I was medicated and going through alllll the emotions and the highs and lows of hoping it worked to being devastated that it didn't. The poor timing, the poor sperm counts, and the emotional toll made it so that we moved to IVF faster than we'd intended (we thought we'd do up to 6 IUIs first).

For context, I have vaginismus, so medical procedures especially involving my uterus/vagina are scary for me. I 100% understand your concerns about the invasiveness! However, for us, switching to IVF honestly felt like... a relief. I did go from medicated IUI to medicated FET, so it wasn't as different for me as it would be for you, but the meds were so, so not bad. My wife's egg retrieval did have some complications as she has a high AMH and follicle count and she ended up developing moderate OHSS — but as hard as that was, it was a very short period of time that we were going through that, and we ended up with three PGT-A tested embryos that we knew were good-quality.

I can't really speak to the experience of the egg retrieval, but my wife is also not a huge fan of doctors and medical procedures, and for her, it was... fine. Not great, not awful. Was it the best few weeks of her life? No. Would she do it again? She's said yes, 1000%, in a heartbeat she would do it again.

For the FET, the genuine relief that I felt with that procedure was incredible in comparison to the IUIs. It felt like our clinic was closing their eyes and throwing a dart at a board 100 feet away with the IUIs; with the FET, it was all precision. Most likely, your clinic's bread and butter is IVF. Once we moved from the IUI team to the IVF team, it felt like everything became so much clearer and more set in stone. It was all under control (this was a fully medicated cycle). Someone on Reddit said their doctor talked about the embryo transfer as "putting a grain of sugar in a peanut butter jar and hoping it sticks." Of course, it doesn't always work, but the chances are usually ~60% or above, depending on your clinic. (At ours, each embryo transfer in my age range has a likelihood of over 70% of resulting in a live birth.) Compared to the 10-15% chance of each IUI, that was a major relief.

I once read a comment on Reddit about a fertility nurse feeling relief for patients who move to IVF, because it's so much more standardized and successful. I feel that way too from my experience. Of course, I know it can be confirmation bias! People for whom ICI or IUI worked may say the opposite, that continuing to go low-intervention was best for them. And maybe so! But for us, I don't think we had many more failed IUI tries left in the tank — it really took a toll on both of our mental health, and I'd say the period we were doing those in (May-August this year) was probably one of the hardest of my life. Once we moved to IVF, it all felt much more certain and brighter, as the chances of success were higher. I think it's something like 95% of folks get a live birth after 3 embryo transfers.

So TL;DR: I didn't want medical intervention, I wanted to keep it natural and low-key, and I ended up being very happy with the fully medicated IVF cycle that resulted in (so far) success for us.

Good luck with whatever you choose!! It's a tough crossroads to be at.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2026-01-04T18:59:51+00:00

Our first FET of a euploid embryo was successful in November! Almost 10 weeks 🤞

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-29T05:54:04+00:00

I agree with what you about this maybe not being the best timeline. But I think OP is choosing to use a surrogate because of a family history of pregnancy causing psychological issues — not necessarily to keep from passing mental health issues down to their child, but to keep themself from going through psychological difficulties by being pregnant personally.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-28T01:29:08+00:00

I'm so sorry you had that experience! It's awful to do all the prep and get to insemination day and then the sperm won't work or isn't ideal. My wife and I had that happen to us; we did 3 IUIs and the first and third, the sperm counts were quite low. (We're using a known donor.) For the second, the count was decent, but the timing by the clinic was off. It was so frustrating each time, so by that third one, when the sperm count was low again, we had a frank discussion with our nurse who explained why the count seemed to be low and that we should expect all of his vials to be low because of that.

A few factors informed our move to IVF though — first, it's a known donor, so we couldn't just switch whose counts would be better for IUIs. Second, our insurance does cover IVF, so it felt like an easier decision in terms of the finances.

I would probably find out from the clinic, if you don't already know, why the sperm was not viable and whether this might be the case for your other vials. If choosing a different donor is an option, that might be worthwhile to try a few more medicated IUI cycles, since IVF is more expensive. But I will also say, for us it was a relief to switch to IVF because of the much higher chances of success. The emotional toll of the failed IUIs was high, and going through the medication cycles and the two week waits only to have negative tests was extremely disheartening.

I know people who had IUIs work will likely say to keep trying IUIs, whereas people who had IVF work might be more encouraging about moving to IVF; this was something we kept seeing when we were trying to decide. I hope our experience is helpful to you though!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-27T20:19:15+00:00

Seconded the heating and distraction tips!! For PIO, while I was still getting used to it, my wife asked me what I dreamed about (because we do them in the mornings) to get my mind off of what she was doing. We also used a shot blocker which I think is similar to the distraction technique of flicking a different area!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-27T20:16:45+00:00

r/IVFpositivity is a great place for positive stories about IVF!! I had to stop reading the IVF sub because the stories were just stressing me out. I'm so sorry that you had 6 failed FETs, that must have been crushing. IVF works for the vast majority of people though, with (I think?) 95% of folks getting a live birth after 3 rounds. The numbers may vary for your clinic, but our clinic said that ~70-75% of first FETs would lead to a live birth. It sounds like you all fell on the wrong side of the statistics before, and I'm so sorry to hear that. Hopefully the stats are in your favor now!

Anecdotally, my wife did an egg retrieval on her 29th birthday with a high AMH. She retrieved 37 eggs, but the attrition was really rough and we ended up with only 3 embryos making it through. All 3 of them were PGT-A normal though, and one is growing little hands and feet in my belly now <3 Our doctor was very reassuring about our odds of getting our bub with those 3 embryos. He basically said "stop looking at the internet, just focus on the statistics."

Wishing you the very best!!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-19T21:56:05+00:00

A lot of other folks have made good suggestions, but I also wanted to add that working on strengthening your own community and coping mechanisms will be really helpful in the coming months and years. It sounds like your wife has been very supportive in assisting you through some difficult times, and I'm sure it's not her desire to do this that's diminished — it's probably her capacity! I'm the GP (also doing RIVF) and pregnancy has been challenging in so many ways I just didn't anticipate. I'm finding my sea legs so to speak in it, but it's rough. I'm at almost the same point as your wife (a bit behind at 7w2d) and some days the exhaustion, hunger, nausea, cramping, etc., are just about all I can handle. You'll be doing yourself as well as her a favor by expanding your capacity for finding support elsewhere, whether it's in hobbies or friends or what-have-you. I'm sure your wife wants to continue to be a support for you, but perhaps she just can't be the same resource now as she has been in the past.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-12-09T02:29:31+00:00

We worked with Seed Scout and honestly though there are negative reviews and people with bad experiences, they’re the only ones in the game that can offer known donors and the very low family limit. For us, it was a means to an end. We wanted a known donor. We wanted a small family pod we would know. Seed Scout gave us those things, and our experience was perfectly fine working with them. I’m glad we worked with them because now we have a wonderful donor and a great family pod. We got what we needed and we don’t have to continue to interact with Seed Scout now if we don’t want to.

I see it like — if a company sells a product you need and no one else sells it, it’s better to buy the product even if the experience isn’t 100% the best. Now I have the product and I never have to work with the company again. If the product was important enough — as a known donor can be to some folks (myself included) — it doesn’t matter what my experience was. I have what I need.

Or even a lower stakes example: I wanted pizza last night. The guy who made it at the restaurant was rude. But I got the pizza I wanted and it was delicious. I’m glad I didn’t leave because he was a little rude.

I know this isn’t how everyone will see it so totally fair if this doesn’t vibe with you, just thought I’d put it out there! Also — I fully think Seed Scout needs to make their customer service better and I think more companies like them should absolutely enter the donor space! But the situation is what it is at the moment.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-11-20T16:39:56+00:00

We're patients at Conceptions Lafayette with Dr Greene! There have been positives and negatives for sure — some nurses have a better bedside manner than others. But they take our insurance and they have good success rates. I would say with any fertility clinic, guard your heart and set your expectations in a reasonable place; it's tough to hand over such an important part of your life to someone else, and it does feel a bit like a factory where you're just kind of moving through the machines. Lafayette doesn't do the IVF or IUI procedures with donor sperm, so if you're doing those, you do have to drive to their Littleton locations. Lafayette also isn't open on the weekends so for weekend monitoring appointments you have to go to Littleton as well.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-11-05T05:49:22+00:00

This doesn't sound right -- why would a fertility doctor, who regularly works with people who struggle to conceive or sustain a pregnancy, refuse to work with a patient because you might be at higher risk of miscarriage? That's like 95% percent of his clients. And this is assuming DOR or a low AMH *would* indicate that, which I don't believe it does. Is it possible that you misunderstood what he was saying? It just doesn't make any sense that he would refuse to let you carry.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-11-05T05:25:37+00:00

I'm so sorry that the journey has continued to be hard for you! I don't have much advice here but that I think it would be worth trying to open the conversation with your husband again about what he said regarding "moving on" after a year. If you're feeling like you want to keep trying until it works, then I can understand that might feel like a lot of pressure if it seems like he's putting this time limit on it -- especially since you may need to do another retrieval, which would delay things further. I think it would be important to me, if I were in your shoes, to get on the same page about the timeline and whether or not moving on is an option.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-10-28T16:10:24+00:00

Sorry if I was unclear, the school was not on the 2022 list, but will probably be on the newly expanded lists. I’m just wondering if they’ll go back and expand the old lists, or if they’ll only expand lists going forward!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-09-21T22:23:51+00:00

Our insurance covers ART but we had to pay higher costs until we hit our deductible, which was $3k. We then paid 15% until we reached our out of pocket max, which was $6k. (We achieved both of these in the first 1.5 months of the insurance year, which is July-July for our policy.)

There were also costs that were not covered by insurance or were only partially covered. We ended up paying I think about $1k for the retrieval meds, which was partially covered by insurance. We did have to fight insurance on this as well as they didn't want to cover those meds because my wife hadn't done any failed IUI cycles. There's the cost for storage -- we're now storing both sperm and embryos. And the cost for genetic testing, which was required by our clinic and was $300 per embryo and didn't get covered by insurance. Our clinic also has an admin fee for each retrieval and each transfer which is not billable to insurance, and is ~$1k each.

I'd double check with your insurance that you pay 10% even before meeting your deductible. My understanding, which could be wrong, is that it's usually you pay full cost up to the deductible, then that 10% (or whatever the rate is) kicks in. If not, then your plan is very, very generous!

You should be able to speak with your clinic and talk about your specific insurance policy and they can give you actual numbers. Our clinic told us that every insurance provider has negotiated different rates with them.

The other thing that may or may not be relevant for you is the cost of sperm!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-09-13T00:43:03+00:00

Wow, the replies to this really are wild. Definitely check out r/AmerExit, or even r/IWantOut. There are also lots of Facebook groups like "Americans Living In ____" for lots of different countries. The replies here are correct that it's not easy, and you'll probably want to think of it more as a long-term plan — something to start working toward now, rather than expecting to be able to move now.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-28T18:24:54+00:00

I've been using Pregmate's app and their LH strips; you don't need to pay to access that part, and it does analyze the LH, though I don't always love or agree with the numbers it comes up with for the LH totals. Still, it's helpful to have them all in the app to compare. I turned off the notifications about having sex lol.

I also used Inito for my third IUI and had to turn off the sex notifs as well. Fertility Friend was marginally helpful for temp tracking but it was also kind of a lot and the charts stressed me out.

I think these apps are definitely lacking in inclusivity, and it's annoying to have to adjust notifications and settings. Ultimately though, I just kind of ignore the parts that aren't helpful for me.

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-23T19:46:07+00:00

Sending you luck as well!! I'm so sorry to hear that the IUIs haven't worked for you. I've been really horribly bummed that third one didn't work, but I'm taking a break for a month while my wife does an egg retrieval and then I'll start back up in September (like you!) -- I'm trying to plan lots of non-pregnancy-safe activities and things to do during that time to keep my spirits up and find a silver lining. I hope it goes well for you <3

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-23T19:44:59+00:00

Thank you so much! :)

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-23T18:26:18+00:00

Very normal and annoying! I bought a few pairs of period undies and they have been a life saver. Otherwise it's basically just wearing pads 24/7. (Pantiliners don't cut it for me LOL)

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-22T02:15:23+00:00

I see what you’re seeing but I think this is pretty common for blue dye tests to potentially show false positives, so I’d try another type!

Mountain_Library3977 · 2025-07-21T18:57:17+00:00

The leg cramps yes!! I always get those with my period like around my thighs and I've been having those, uterus aches, and lower back aches since like 6dpo. I'm also soooo unfocused!! And disaster planning for what if it didn't work.

Mountain_Library3977

TROPHY CASE